It is indeed a strange land, but it's also some beautiful country.

My dilemna is this: My wife and I want to move out of the DFW area. Trouble is, my career pretty much requires that I be near a large city (commercial construction). If we're not in DFW, that leaves Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

Houston - No way.
San Antonio- Probably not bad but don't really want to go THAT far south.
Austin - Beautiful area, already have friends and some family there, close to lots of cool places to visit, 160 miles from both my family and my wife's family, and then of course....TRAFFIC.

I can't imagine that Austin traffic could be much worse than Dallas traffic though.

 

Yep! pretty neat region, hence all the people moving into the area.
The whole central Texas area is getting highly congested with many of the commuters seeking that urban payscale with suburban/rural Central Texas living. They keep spreading out farther and farther.
Try it and see how you can deal with it. Lots of others do...

K.

 

Well....first things first....finding a job down there.

 

How does the concrete bedliner affect this situation?

 

There is a lot of road construction going on. Mostly toll roads. One to two years will see most of them completed and traffic should be improved. I would guess you would be looking at 30 / 45 minutes unless there is an accident or unusual weather. Non rush hour would be 15/20 minutes.
Come on down, even with traffic it's a nice town. I'm looking forward to seeing the concrete bedliner.

 

Well...since you invited me...I think I just might!!

 

Hoss,
(Insert [serious] tag here),
Have you considered a career change? I am in the same boat as you ('cept mine is not made of cement). My career choice (electrical engineer) pretty much keeps me close to the big cities (which I hate). We love going out of town to areas like the Hill Country for the weekend to get away from it all. I would love to live in an area like that. Doesn't even have to be in Texas (for me at least). I have thought about changing careers in order to be able to live in rural area but I have no idea what I would do. Just a thought.

~Rob

 

Hoss,

I know you're in large scale commercial construction, but have you thought about doing the smaller stuff? There's a lot of small commercial building around Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Boerne, Dripping Springs, between Austin and Marble Falls, etc. The money may not be as good, but the lifestyle would certainly be better!

Rusty

 

Hoss, we live West of Austin out at Lake Travis and drive into Austin each day for work. I work literally 100 yards from the State Capital in downtown Austin and my drive is 32 miles one way. I work from 7 to 4 and my drive is 35 minutes in the morning and 45 on the way home. My wife's drive is about 1/2 that because she works in South Austin. I work with a guy that lives in Georgetown and he works the same hours as I do and his commute is about 40 minutes in the morning and a little less than 1 hour going home. I hope this helps.

 

I have considered that, but like you, I have no idea what I would do. I would LOVE to get into custom home building, but even that requires you to be somewhat close to the city because the people who can generally afford custom homes work in the larger cities.

That is something that I've considered and am still considering.

 

That does help.

Is Spicewood a pretty nice area? From what I know of the area I bet that is some beautiful country. I'm assuming you take 71 into Austin?

I'm not opposed to that area, but we have some good friends as wells as a sister and brother-in-law that live in Cedar Park. My wife would prefer to be somewhat close to them, but I guess that's not too far away.

 

Spicewood is very nice and in the Hill Country. We have deer and trukey around all the time. I do take 71 into Southwest Parkway and then over to Mopac. My wife works in Oak Hill so she is only about 20 miles from the house.
We use to live in Pflugerville and decided it was time to move when the taxes started to climb. Cedar Park and Leander are nice areas but do have a lot of traffic. If you cut across on 620 from 71 you can be in the CP/Leander area in about 30 to 45 minutes from our house.

 

What do you know about Dripping Springs? Seems like a nice little small town.

 

We looked in Dripping Springs the same time we bought in Spicewood. It is a nice area and maybe a little shorter drive than Spicewood but what killed it for us was the high property taxes as opposed to where we are now. The same sized house as we have now would have cost us another $1500 to $2k a year in taxes. You would just have to look at it and see if you could find something that fit your needs. We know eventually they will start building more out our way but we intend to retire in about 6 years and move either farther West or in the East Texas area.

 

That's ironic. We've been looking in the Hill Country for retirement property on which to build in the next 4-6 years, but between population growth, property prices, taxes, etc., we wound up buying a beautiful piece of property between Victoria and Cuero. No rocks. No mountain cedars. Lotsa live oaks in rolling hills. Closer to the Gulf than I really want, but nothing's perfect.

Rusty